Welcome to the Fishing Report. It is sunny and cold this morning, 30 degrees. It is hard to believe we’ll have highs in the 70’s next week. Traffic in town is light this morning but last night when I drove home it looked like rush hour in Nashville. All of the vehicles were coming from the direction of Maryville. It was dark so all I saw were headlights. I have not seen that much traffic in a long time. What’s going on?

Little River is dropping. The water is still high, like you would see in the Spring. Flow is 460 cubic feet per second. Media flow for this date is 134 cfs. Earlier this week the flow peaked close to 2,700 cfs. The record flow for this date was 2,100 cfs in 2004. The water temperature was 43 degrees, in town at 7:45 am.

Fishing will be slow this morning. It should pick up a little later today after the water warms. Tomorrow will be warmer and there is a slight chance for rain. Then that chance becomes greater on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.

I would use nymphs, weighted and drifted near the bottom. Watch for brown trout redds. Don’t step in them. Some anglers are pestering the brown trout and a few have been caught. My friends don’t target the females. And they all release those that are caught. Most efforts to catch these spawning fish fail. I don’t even try. I’m not big on interrupting the spawn activity. And, I’m always too busy to fish this time of year.

The other species and smaller browns are busy eating dislodged eggs. A egg pattern is a good choice. I have not mentioned that lately. I forgot. Otherwise, stick with nymphs. A strike indicator will hinder your ability to keep the fly near the bottom. Try fishing without one.

All indications are, the smallmouth bass fishing has slowed to a halt. I’m not hearing anything and I have not been myself in a couple of weeks. I may try again next week if the water is not too high. Those fish seem to go dormant after the water chills though the trout are more active.

I like to tie flies when the temperature drops and that is what I’m doing. My fly tying desk is full of flies and materials. This week I added a Dyna-King arm extension to my vise. I can’t believe I never thought of doing that. Chris Helm showed me his setup when he was tying here one time and it didn’t click with me. Now I can sit back and the vise swings out over my lap. It is a lot more comfortable. Then, when I’m not tying the vise and the attached trash basket swings back to the desk and out of the way.

I talked to Scott the sales manager at Korkers yesterday. We had a good meeting. Actually Daniel and I used the speaker on the phone and it was a three way conversation. I also talked to Jordan, the sales manager at Fishpond yesterday afternoon. We are working on a online project together.

Our fly fishing classes will be offered from March to October 2011. To sign up just call the shop at 877-448-3474. You can read more on our website in the Schools Section. The fly fishing class schedule follows:

Saturday October 8 – Beginner Day One
Saturday October 22 – Beginner Day One
Sunday October 23 – Beginner Onstream Day Two